Re: A few usability question about git diff --cached

From: Matthieu Moy <matthieu.moy@imag.fr>
Date: Oct 4, 2007, 14:44 UTC
Message-ID: <vpqtzp7ndn3.fsf@bauges.imag.fr>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0710041534000.4174@racer.site>

Johannes Schindelin <Johannes.Schindelin@gmx.de> writes:

Show 8 quoted lines

> Hi,
>
> On Thu, 4 Oct 2007, Junio C Hamano wrote:
>
>>  * --cached means work only on index and ignore work tree.
>
> I guess I could live with "--staged" as a synonym for "--cached" (and 
> maybe deprecating "--cached").

It makes more sense to me.

For me, a "cache" is a fast-access copy of something, that I can rebuild at any time. Cache should be only a matter of performance, if the "cache" for an application changes its functionality, it means the cache has been too optimistic. Git's index is not that, "git add" means "add this to the index", which itself means "put that in the list of things to commit", and not "get a copy of that to work faster with it".

So, to me (non-native speaker), "index" doesn't mean much, "cache" is worse, it means something which isn't correct, and "staging area" means the right thing (but is longer to type). For example, I understand immediately when git-gui talks me about staging/unstaging changes ;-).

-- 
Matthieu